What does emotional freedom look like when you’re grieving, healing, and still helping others?
Let’s get real:
The Fourth of July is all about celebrating freedom, but I’ll be honest…it doesn’t feel so free this year.
Not when grief is still living in my chest. Not when I’m watching so many of us try to survive systems, losses, and inner battles that no parade will ever acknowledge. Not when “freedom” feels like something we’re still fighting for emotionally, mentally, sometimes even physically.
So this month, instead of pretending I’m okay or trying to match the energy of fireworks and flag-waving, I’m choosing something else:
I’m choosing to look inward. To check in on the places inside me that still feel heavy, tangled, or hidden. To ask what freedom means when it isn’t loud or visible or easy.
This time last year,
I was halfway across the country on a road trip that I felt like I had to take to keep peace in the family. –a lot to unpack here, I know-
My grandma told me to go even though I could tell she wanted me to stay. Said I needed to help my mom and uncle drive. Said I was still young, could stay awake longer, could handle the miles.
Said she’d be fine. I wanted to stay with her in that hospital. Wanted her to not be alone. Wanted to believe she would actually be okay and even had plans for her to be picked up from the hospital when she was actually good to come home. But deep inside something told me I was wrong. I trusted the words of everyone around me, promising she would be fine. I shouldn’t have. I almost canceled, something in me just… knew. I didn’t even decide to go until 30 min before the trip started. I regret it every day.
She passed away on July 29, 2024, while I was on the road and I tried to pretend I wasn’t unraveling inside.
I still remember the exact moment I got the call.
The moment everything in me fractured.
The moment that changed me forever.
This month is going to be hard. A whole year without her. A full year she won’t be a part of.
| There’s this pressure in the self-help world to wrap everything up with a bow.To talk about “healing” like it’s something you do in your spare time and then move on. To act like “moving on” is a checkbox on a to-do list. But grief doesn’t care about your schedule. It hits in gas station parking lots. In silent hotel rooms. In the middle of July, when everyone else is watching fireworks and you’re just trying to hold it together. The Dragonfly Showed Up Anyway A beautiful bright blue one landed on my shoulder about an hour after she passed. The moment I opened my car door when I got to one of my favorite places. Cypress Gardens in South Carolina. A dragonfly, sitting still, looking at me like it had something to say, like it was her. And somehow, I knew too. She was with me. She still is.Every time I’m unsure, exhausted, or doubting whether I’m cut out to keep showing up for others, I remember her voice.And that’s what this month’s about for me. Not just freedom from fear or anxiety. But freedom from the belief that I have to have it all together in order to be worthy, to be helpful, to be whole. |
| Mid-Year Reset (The Real Kind) You don’t need a Pinterest-perfect routine to reset your life. You just need honesty… and a little space to breathe. For me, this mid-year mark feels like a pressure point. I’m exhausted. Not just physically but emotionally, spiritually, all the quiet places people don’t usually see. I’ve spent the last eleven months trying to keep it together. Trying to grieve while still showing up for work, for clients, for friends. This month is one of the hardest. Trying to keep moving while carrying things that were never mine to hold forever. Some days, I still don’t know what I need. Other days, I realize I’ve gone numb again and the only thing that brings me back is grounding, crying, or sitting in silence with a dragonfly-shaped reminder that I’m not alone. If you’re here too, somewhere between holding it together and falling apart, try this with me: 1. Write down what you’ve survived since January. Not what you accomplished, but what you got through. There’s a difference. And you deserve credit for all of it. 2. Name the things you’re tired of carrying. For me? Guilt. Regret. The pressure to be okay all the time. You don’t have to fix it right now. Just name it, that’s the first step in setting it down. 3. Anchor your own truth. Choose one sentence that feels like coming home. “I don’t have to perform peace to be deserving of it.” “Grief and growth can exist together.” “I’m allowed to begin again, mid-year, mid-meltdown, mid-anything.” Anchor your truth. 4. Ask for help if you need it. Hypnotherapy has been one of the only things that helped me reconnect with myself this year. Not by fixing me but by gently peeling back the layers so I could find me again underneath it all. This ritual isn’t about getting back on track. It’s about remembering that you are the track. |
| If You’re Still Carrying It, You Don’t Have to Do It Alone. You don’t need a breakdown to justify a reset. You don’t need to be “bad enough” to deserve help. You don’t need to have the right words, the right plan, or the right mindset. You don’t need to wait for another new year to come home to yourself. You just need to be human…Tender. Tired. Trying. I’ve learned this the hard way… through quiet grief, through overwhelming guilt, through trying to hold space for others while barely holding it for myself. There were days I showed up to therapy sessions hollowed out, running on fumes and dragonfly whispers. Days I wanted someone to just say, “Hey… you don’t have to do this alone. I’m here.” So I’m saying it to you now: You don’t. You don’t have to carry the weight of it all just because you always have. You don’t have to stay strong just because people think you are. You don’t have to wait until you’re falling apart to finally choose yourself. You just need to begin. Messy, unsure, quiet, all of that is welcome. Maybe your reset starts today. Maybe it starts with us. We’re here when you’re ready. No pressure. Just presence. |
